Friday, June 02, 2006

The sunrise in the East - Will it be a good finish?

Aeron a 33 year old, north-western American left me in a total shock when he asked me 'Hey Jay! I saw in the TV that Indian stock market is crashing. Is it so ?'.Of course this is the last question you expect from Aeron a car driver who drops and picks me from my work place. He hardly has a college degree and he knows about Indian stock market crash.Whats happening around me? Inside my mind a sudden statement came up 'The sunrise in the east'.

My mind was wandering on some of the events that has happened in the past one and a half months. The receptionist in my office enters my country name as 'India' without even asking me, The April edition of Newsweek a famous US magazine has got the cover story 'The new India’. Every day in Wall-Street-Journal, the financial newspaper of the US has at least one column about China. Yes! I am experiencing it personally! The eastern part of the world is indeed raising. I also did some more reading and pondering with myself and started writing this blog.

Both economies are growing at a very fast phase around 7-8% and China is pretty ahead in the GDP numbers. Apart from the GDP growth China has built up an excellent infrastructure and excellent systems in place and preparing for the future growth. Whereas in India in spite of opening up the economy 15 years back the government system is pathetic and infrastructure is still of 'Third world' class.Basic problems like poverty, education and healthcare still remains far distant dream for rural Indians and words like 'e-Governance'and 'IT for common man' are remaining as buzzwords and noting in concrete. What is the point in talking about Economic growth without improving quality of life of people ? 30 million Indians earn less than one dollar a day and 60 million of them earn less than two dollar a day.

"India has nearly 500 million people under age 19 and higher fertility rates. By mid-century, India is expected to have 1.6 billion people -- and 220 million more workers than China. That could be a source for instability, but a great advantage for growth if the government can provide education and opportunity for India's masses"

So the youth of the country is going to be the deciding factor. By reforminggovernance, providing good education and generating employment for 220 million workers Indian can demonstrate its true potential and will be able to give what I call it as 'Good finish'.Otherwise this will be another generation with 'lost dreams'